Turtle island. Marathonisi island.

Turtle island as it is well known as or Marathonisi island , its proper name is a must while on Zakynthos.

We drove down to Keri today. What an amazing place that is and the drive down in through some amazing scenery. On the last high bend before you desend into Keri Lake, the beach area, you get the most fantastic view of the island. Turtle island has gained its name over the years for two reasons. Firstly the shape of the island . You can imagine a turtle resting in the water, and secondly because of the fact that the turtles make their nests on the beach.

So once we got to the beach we hired a small boat to go exploring for a few hours. In the bay area you must take the boats very slowly as the turtles swim in this area. So we have a cruise around to see of we are lucky enough to see one of the Caretta Caretta tutles. We are in luck a large turtle is swimming just under the water close by to us. we turn the boat off so we don’t scare her and wait patiently for her to come up to the surface to take a breath. Wow just amazing.

After this we made our way over to the island itself. You can only dock on one part of it . There is a small sandy beach so we jumped off the boat and swim here for a while.

After a swim we get back on the boat and make our way round the island and towards the Keri caves and the fantastic Mizithres rocks. There is a newly formed beach her. In October 2018 there was a big eathquake on the island and the beach was formed. It has been named St Dimitris beach as it was formed on the date of his name day . 26th October.

After having a swim here too we head into the caves. The water is crystal clear and great for snorkelling, glad we brought our masks.

Unfortunately our time is up, we need to get the boat back to the beach. What an amazing couple of hours that was. Seeing the Caretta turtle was a great experience.

Looking forward to taking a boat out in another part of the island in the next few days.

Beautiful Zakynthos. The water is so amazingly clear.